In scenes that could have been from a Hollywood movie, a flaming meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over central Russia Friday, injuring some 1,000 people, according to Associated Press reports. The meteor, which struck near the town of Chelyabinsk some 1,500km (930 miles) east of Moscow, weighed about 10 tons and was moving as fast as 33,000 mph.
The meteor released several kilotons of energy above the region and was probably about 2 meters (6 ½ feet) across, Richard Binzel, a professor of Planetary Science at MIT told the AP. The shock wave blew in more than 1 million square feet of glass, according to city officials, who said 3,000 buildings in Chelyabinsk were damaged.
The meteor hit less than a day before Asteroid 2012 DA14 is set to make the closest recorded pass of an asteroid to the Earth — about 28,000 km (17,150 miles). But the European Space Agency said its experts had determined there was no connection between the two.
